Previous Page Close Next Page
fol. 38r [fol. 37v, NG letter] 'Truth not easily Discerned' (Pt II, Sn I, Ch II) (3.143)
I believe this kind of sensibility may be entirely resolved into the mechanical sensibility <I have> of which I have just been speaking . associated with
Love . love I mean - in its infinite & holy extent - as it <r[?]>embraces divine
and human & brutal intelligence . and hallows <its> {the} physical perception
5 of external objects by association - gratitude - veneration and other
{<high> pure}attributes of our moral nature . And {al}though - <as I have said in
the first chapter> - the discovery of truth is in its{elf} <own nature> . purely
intellectual . and depende<d>{nt} on our powers of physical perception &
abstract intellect - wholly independent of our moral nature . yet these
10 instruments - (perception & judgment) are so sharpened & brightened
and so ^ {far more} swiftly & effectively used - when they have the energy and passion of our moral nature to bring them into action - perception
is so quickened by love - & judgment so tempered by Veneration -
that - practically . a man of deadened moral sensation is always
15 dull in his perception of truth - and thousands of the highest and
most divine truths of nature are wholly concealed from him .
however constant <or eager> {& indefatigable} may be his intellectual search . Thus then - the farther we look - the more we are limited in the number of
those whom we should choose to appeal to , as judges of truth , and the
20 more we perceive how great a majority of mankind are totally incapacitated
from either discovering or feeling it .
Previous Page Close Next Page
MW